Recent developments in wireless communications technologies, and particularly broadband wireless communications, have made the wireless exchange of content-rich data, such as video data, a reality. Wireless broadband communications technologies, when used in combination with mobile communication devices such as cellular phones or personal digital assistants (PDAs), provide individuals today with the ability to almost instantaneously create, update, and share information. As a result, both the diversity and sheer volume of data produced and associated with individual mobile communication device users has grown tremendously, creating the need for better mobile data management systems.
Additionally, improvements in the quality of wireless data and voice communications, as well as improvements in the coverage offered by wireless communication networks has resulted in making mobile communication devices extremely important communication tools. In fact, people often have multiple communication devices and means of being contacted. Therefore, users frequently route calls between various communication devices, for example, by initially receiving a call with one device and having it diverted to another device.
This increase in mobile device usage has, however, resulted in requiring the users of such devices to expend significant amounts of time managing incoming communications. For example, mobile device users receiving several calls per hour on their mobile devices are likely to have to devote a significant amount of attention to their devices so that they are able to receive important calls, while avoiding unimportant or vexatious calls. As mobile device users are also likely to be engaged in other tasks, such as driving or attending a meeting when calls are received, manual call screening or management may be even more burdensome for this group. Moreover, as mobile device users create, receive and share data frequently, they are often additionally burdened with tasks associated with organizing and appropriately utilizing such data.
In order to relieve some of this burden on mobile device users, systems for managing mobile communications have been developed. Many such systems address synchronization problems associated with managing the data (e.g., lists of user contacts) created and used by mobile device users, while others attempt to solve specific issues associated with managing communications (e.g., incoming calls) directed to mobile devices. What is needed is a more effective way to manage the data as well as devices associated with mobile communications, in order to more effectively manage mobile communications.